


Falling Deeper

by AbAbsurdo



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25112809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbAbsurdo/pseuds/AbAbsurdo
Summary: Thomas comes for a visit and, well, Richard cannot resist him.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	Falling Deeper

_You show me everything my heart is capable of_   
_You reshape me like butterfly origami_

Iyeoka Okoawo

Thomas has just closed the door behind him, and Richard has turned the lock on when Thomas has a pair of strong arms wrapped around him from behind, a cold nose breathing deeply in his neck. “Hey!” Richard removes one arm to take the hat off his head and throw it on the floor and then he turns him around.   
Thomas is still looking at his discarded hat. “You threw my hat on the floor,” he says as if he doesn’t understand why that’s something that should have been done.

“Yes,” Richard leans close to his, arms around Thomas’ upper body. “And I want you coat and jacket to follow it as well.” He makes true with his statement by removing Thomas’ clothes slowly and tossing them on the floor.

“Heavens, Richard. You have hangers, don’t you?” 

“Of course, I have.” The cheeky smile drives Thomas up the wall. He detaches himself from Richard and puts his clothes on a chair slowly and methodically, no creases to be created on them. 

“You are tense.”

Thomas turns around, wide-open and glazed eyes look up at him. “M’not tense.” As if eating syllables will convince Richard, who in turn decides seduction must wait for a while. He has a scared bird in his hands fluttering about. He often forgets he doesn’t know Thomas as well as he wants, that the man has a past that has shaped him to who he is today.

But he wants to know it, and he moves closer, slowly, watching Thomas watching him before he hugs him loosely. And when Thomas’ arms find their way around him his heartbeat calms down. “Let’s start again. Hello, Thomas. Welcome to my home.” 

He can feel Thomas smiling on his neck. “Hi. You have a lovely home, that I haven’t see yet.” 

“You’ll be here for next forty-eight hours. You will have seen it by the time I take you to the station to leave me for the next God only knows how many months. I’m feeling already lonely just by thinking of it.” 

“Maybe you’ll get bored of me and you won’t wait to see the back of me.” Thomas says and while Richard could easily believe he’s joking, he sees Thomas actually isn’t. 

“Never!” he teases, but Thomas just stiffens in his arms.

“Don’t make promises you don’t know if you can keep.”

Richard pulls Thomas with him and they sit on the sofa, thighs touching. Richard dares to put his hand on Thomas’ knee, remembering those perfect lips touching his own. “I’ve been thinking of you unstoppably since the last time I saw you. What makes you think this can change?”

“You’ll get to know me.”

“That’s the goal.”

“And what if you don’t like me?”

“What if I like you?”

“You don’t know that.”

“Thomas, why did you come here today?”

“I don’t know.” Thomas looks down, right hand massaging the left.

“Why did you write me twice a week for four months?

Why did I write to you three times a week for four months?

“It wasn’t always three times.”

“Most of the times.”

Thomas concedes and Richard continues, because he needs to reach to the bottom of this so he can move forward with his relationship with him.

“Were you lying in your letters?”

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Do you think I was lying in mine?”

“No. Why? Were you?”

“I never once lied to you, Thomas.”

“Then what makes you think I don’t know you?” Richard cups Thomas’ cheek delighted when Thomas leans to his touch. 

“Why do you like me?”

Richard feels his own eyes widening at the question, the silliest question he has ever been asked. He pushes Thomas down on the couch, leaning over him. “You are the snarkier, most eloquent, capable man I have ever had the pleasure of exchanging letter with.”

He stares down at the grey eyes, filled with contained passion. “From what you’ve written to me, you’re a good leader, caring of your people -and seeing your stuff I know they care for you too, Mrs. Patmore can be very intimidating when she’s protecting you, let me tell you.”

He leans down and kisses the prominent cheekbone. “You love children.”

He kisses Thomas’ temple, lingering there for a moment before kissing his forehead, pushing the hair out of the way. “You like reading; novels, fiction, history and current events. You like reading everything that comes in your hands” 

He kisses his left eyebrow. “Which in turn makes you a great conversationalist.”

“M’not.” Thomas has been looking up at him all this time, letting himself be kissed and sweet talked, absorbing the affection.

“Yes. You are.” He kisses his nose. “You also have an exceptionally beautiful nose. Manly. Roman… or Greek. I don’t know exactly. How do you describe your nose?” He feels Thomas laughing beneath him.

“Mine?”

“Exactly. So it’s beautiful. Just like your cheeks.” He brings his right hand up to cup his cheekbone. “If only I was a sculptor. Or a painter.” He leans down and nuzzles against the cheek. He pulls back and stares at Thomas. “Your eyes. Dangerous. Icy, cold, the fire inside them can burn me.” Richard moves his body to fully cover Thomas’ but keeps most of his weight on his elbows. 

“And your lips.” He can see Thomas looking at him suspiciously as if he’s gone mad. Maybe he has. He’s been fantasising this man in his bed for four long months and now here he has him and finds his shyness both lovely and impossible to believe. “Sinful. Your mouth is sinful.” He locks his gaze on the red, newly bitten lips. “That one time I saw you smoking… boy, it should be illegal. You should come with a warning; ‘Approach with caution’. Don’t laugh. You are sin incarnated.”

“You are daft.”

“You are daft if you think I’ll have you and then I’ll let you go. I smile like a teenager with a crush every time I think of you. And I think of you very often.” He leans down again supporting himself on his forearms, licking at the fragile skin of Thomas’ neck. “And when you talk, that voice, the accent, the quiet quality, the tone… it drives me crazy.” 

He undoes the necktie letting it rest on either side of his shoulders and unbuttons the first button of Thomas’ shirt. “I wish it was me you had gone dancing with.”

‘You’re pouting.”

“Well, you aren’t the only person with that particular privilege. I can pout too. You ditched me to go dance with another guy.” He can’t let jealousy get the best of him though, so when Thomas rests his hands around his shoulders and pulls him up he goes willingly.

“I didn’t ditch you. You were late. I didn’t know where he’d take me. And OK, as silly as that sounds, it was nice having all that attention. But I told you where to find me, because I didn’t ditch you.”

Richard pecks the corner of his lips, nodding in understanding and relief and continues his journey on Thomas’ body. He kisses each inch of newly bared skin, starting on his collarbones. “I wish I had met you years ago.”

“So do I,” Thomas’ voice sounds revering and when Richard looks up to steal a glance at him, his breath is cut short by the look of absolute adoration he sees in the familiar ice. Warmth has replaced iciness and shyness has disappeared. In its place, Richard sees an openness that leaves him breathless and…

  
Wanting. 

But Thomas hasn’t stopped talking. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Giving, not only taking. Asking and not demanding. A caretaker. A beautiful soul that finds something to desire in me.” Richard lays his head on Thomas chest listening to the loud rhythmic beating of his heart. This isn’t new, Thomas being self-deprecating. Even in his letters, Richard had leant to find it, well hidden behind sarcastic comments. He knows Thomas finds it difficult in his heart to believe he deserves to be loved. 

Richard wants to change that. 

Thomas’ chest hair tickles his cheek and a bubble of happiness is formed in his abdomen. He unbuttons a couple of more buttons and permits himself to explore the adventure of exploring Thomas’ body. He wonders if Thomas will let him claim it as his own. He surely would give his own to Thomas. For scientific reasons. 

“I am very fond of you, Mr. Barrow,” he says instead of the “I love you” that’s stuck inside his head because it is too early to say it, isn’t it? But then Thomas’ nipple is just there, and he has to kiss it and Thomas hasn’t stop him yet.

He latches on it, sucking and licking it into a hard peak. Thomas gasps and grasps his head with both hands to stop him. “Too much, too fast?” Richard asks and Thomas looks the other way, his usually pale cheeks a flushed pink. It’s fetching, really. But the shyness, or embarrassment, is back. 

Richard can’t have that. He turns his head and nuzzles on Thomas’ left hand. The fact it’s the one with the leather, fingerless glove is not a coincidence. He kisses the skin between fingers and palm. The hand soon loses its rigidity and obtains a tender fluidity that covers and caresses Richard’s face. He’d like to see what’s hidden beneath the glove, but he’s afraid the moment will break into thousand pieces impossible to be glued back together. So, he says nothing, stays there immovable, head resting on Thomas’ chest, safely cocooned by his large hand. “I bloody want you so much I feel I can’t breathe.” The words are out of his mouth before they connect with his brain. He wraps his arms tightly under Thomas’ body, at the same time, scared he’s going to lose him.

Thomas’ hand stays where it is and when he dares to look up, Thomas’ eyes mirror his own wants and needs, more tenderness and affection than he ever dreamt, but also desperation creeps through the always present insecurity. “I’m not letting you go,” Richard finds himself saying, breath bouncing back and forth between himself and Thomas’ palm, to assuage and give comfort. 

He moves up through Thomas’ body, arms still loosely hold him -Thomas must have raised a bit to make it easier for him- to lie on him face to face, to look down and attempt to calm, every part of the bodies aligned, and he clearly -clearly- hasn’t thought of it well when lower parts of the anatomy touch and Thomas gasps and Richards leans down. Thomas bites his lips in expectation or with nervousness, Richard will never know, as every other thought is gone from his mind. 

Kissing Thomas in his office was nothing like this. It was quick and chaste and exhilarating and made him crave for more. When his lips touch Thomas’ this time, the more is a brush of mouth against mouth, breaths mingling, eyes staying wide open staring, asking, demanding to know, for a long fraction of time. Thomas right hand cups his nape and pulls him down to crash lips against lips, teeth scratching tender skin and they both laugh against each other. This isn’t sophisticated, this isn’t romantic, but it’s real and it’s now. Richard rests his forehead on Thomas’, smile wide, feeling calm which is at odds with the fast beating of his heart.

“Now, I want a decent kiss,” Thomas whispers, accent thick that pulls at the strings of his heart. It’s tender, soft lips against pouty lips, and passionate, licking, sucking and kissing until their lips are red, bruised and shinny. 

“I want to touch you everywhere. Hold you and kiss you, pull you apart and put you together again.” Richard’s fingers travelled down to open more of his shirt’s buttons, his hands touching skin and soft hair. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against Thomas’ lips. 

“M’not beautiful. You are beautiful.”

“Thomas…” Richard’s hand is already in his belt buckle so Thomas thinks he’ll complain later. 

Sated, rested, happy and each other’s arms, a couple of hours later, Thomas opens his eyes to ask. “Was this why you threw my hat on the floor?”

“Don’t worry, love. Next time, you can leave it on, if you want.” 

Thomas’ scandalized look is enough to earn him a long kiss that leaves them breathless and wanting again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not, this story was inspired by Iyeoka's Simple Falling.  
> And, I needed a break from depression.


End file.
